To answer the questions:1. Where possible I use a skew chisel to get the best finish that I can. I try not to sand too much as it can obviously soften the the edges of the detail work. However being a novice turner I can be a little heavy handed with the skew and sometimes end up burnishing the wood, so I do some light sanding to help with the staining process.2. The individual pieces are glued together with epoxy. There is a mortise and tennon joint between the vessel and the cup, the cup and the bead (drilled all the way through), the bead to the stem, and the stem to the base. The smallest tenon is 3/16 and the largest 1/4.